Mega – the fastest growing web service of all time?

Well in case you haven’t heard, welcome back from the moon, and yes Kim Dotcom’s Mega free file storage site has launched. Not only launched, but exploded on the world actually. What is it? Well apart from now becoming the largest New Zealand hosted site in the world in just 3 days (beating out Google.co.nz) it is a direct rival to file storage services such as Dropbox, which has seen a large dip in traffic since Mega launched.

But what makes it special, apart from the fact that it’s a direct bloody nose to the moneyed interests that illegally brought down Megaupload, Dotcom’s previous file storage venture, is the fact that it has been built from the ground up with some powerful and innovative features.

Number one, and most important, is the fact that every file which is uploaded to the service is encrypted to prevent it being read by anyone else apart from those the user chooses. This is not new, but what is new is the fact that it’s switched on by default for free and not as as paid service.

There’s also the fact that each free account comes with 50GB of space, which is huge compared to file storage offerings from Google, Dropbox and the rest. We tried out the service on launch day, and apart from the hiccups with traffic bringing the site to its knees, we have so far been very impressed. The site is incredibly fast, both in upload and download, and the interface is a joy in simplicity.

Mega is multi-lingual out of the box, which is again a hugely powerful difference from so many file storage services which are US oriented only. The service also offers a very attractive Pro version, which lets you store up to 500GB for just $9.99 a month, and that’s the smallest plan. Each file you upload gets its own link, which is perfect for designers and other professionals who need to transfer files to and from clients every day.

There’s also no file size limit, which makes it an awesome resource for musicians, and anyone else who routinely need to share and store large files for their projects or associates. Of course most of the interest from the ‘authorities’ revolves around the issue of piracy, and there’s no question that, like the Post Office, the service will be used for illicit sharing of material, but we have to take our hat off to Mr Dotcom for bouncing back from a brutal assault by introducing such a compelling and potentially valuable product.

We will be watching the site carefully over the coming months, to see whether it lives up to its stellar launch, but the signs are that the Kim Dotcom machine is back in business and determined to shake things up.